From a press release issued by Xerox Ducati: Losail (Qatar), Wednesday 20th February: Despite today’s extremely strong winds, Bayliss and Fabrizio (Ducati Xerox) are both enthusiastic and ready to race the Ducati 1098 F08 for the first time in the opening round of the 2008 World Superbike Championship, taking place this weekend at the Losail International Circuit. The Superbike championship will this year incorporate 15 rounds across 13 countries. Both Ducati Xerox Team riders have been competitive during winter testing and are now eager to begin racing. Bayliss remained in Qatar after last week’s testing session in order to complete further training to ensure he is as fit as possible for the first races. Troy Bayliss “I hope that staying here to train between testing and this weekend’s races has been beneficial. I’ve been going to the gym, cycling and generally doing everything I can to be ready for the first round. We’re finally under way today, starting with the FGSport press event this morning, and now I feel like we’re back in race mode. I’m looking forward to getting on track, although I hope the strong winds that we have here today calm down for the next couple of days. We’ll see how we go tomorrow and hopefully improve on our performance each day. We’ve had a bit of a tough time at this track in the past so hopefully that wont be the case this year.” Michel Fabrizio “I’m ready to get going and take the bike out on track. The championship officially starts tomorrow so we will see how we go but I can say we’re at a good starting place. I was happy with the way we progressed last week when we tested here and so we start from that point tomorrow. I’m just hoping the wind dies down a bit as it will be very difficult to race if it stays this way.” THE CIRCUIT Name: Losail International Circuit Length: 5.380 km Pole Position: right Finish line length: 1068 metres Race distance: 2 x 18 laps/96.840 km